On My Mind: The Unappreciative Leader

Thoughts from Coach Rob Shore about the art, science and lifestyle of wholesaling, for wholesalers and their leaders.

Episode #7: On My Mind: The Unappreciative Leader

What’s on your mind? Email me at rob[at]wholesalermasterminds.com

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Transcription:

Welcome back to this new episode of On My Mind where I would like to share with you something that’s rattling around my head, tell you what’s on my mind and ask you what’s on yours.

And so many of these episodes I’m finding are driven by my conversations with coaching clients, and of course they shall always remain anonymous.

But I did just have a really important conversation with a client and so I’m going to address this On My Mind to managers.

Divisional managers, national sales managers, heads of channels, heads of distribution and respectfully I say to you, why are you not giving the appreciation to your wholesalers when they deserve that appreciation?

This is a situation where this wholesaler has been crushing it for a number of years.

For a number of years and they have been number one in the division.

They are a good corporate citizen, they play nice in the sandbox, they help others within the home office, they help others on the desk, they help others that are members of their team in the division.

It was so interesting to me that this particular wholesaler, as we all have come off of national sales conferences over the course of last three and four months, spent one half of a coaching session lamenting their frustration, and venting their anger, about the fact that their management team had not taken the opportunity to give this person some praise.

And they weren’t looking for a ad in the Wall Street Journal.

What they were looking for was a simple atta-boy, atta-girl.

They were looking for an acknowledgment that they’d been crushing it.

They were looking for the fact that at this particular organization, that there might be too much focus on those that don’t produce, kind of a ‘We’re gonna love everybody equally’ kind of culture.

What’s on my mind is you can’t love everybody equally. You’ve got producers that are on their way out because they’re not producing, that is, wholesalers are on the way out because they’re not producing – perhaps the bottom 20%, and you’ve got the top 20% that are crushing it on behalf of your organization.

And it doesn’t mean they’re egomaniacs, and it doesn’t mean they’re prima donnas, and if they’re team players and, as I said, they’re emotionally intelligent, they get along with the home office folks, they contribute, they share ideas, they’re just all-around good citizens. No, oh by the way, they are just blowing the doors off from a production standpoint.

Why can’t we say thank you?

Why can’t we say good job?

What is it about the culture of certain organizations that gets in the way of this kind of recognition?

Gosh, that’s what’s on my mind.

What’s on yours? Email me, rob[at]wholesalermasterminds.com.